Sam Ward completes TourDeSam

Sam Ward covered 743 miles over the weekend visiting seven HockeyFest events from Woking in Surrey right up to Morpeth in the North East!

Sam started in Woking on Saturday then from Sunday visited Morpeth, Sunderland Broom, Norton, City of York, Bolton and Crewe Vagrants.

“It has been an amazing weekend; I have loved meeting everyone and getting involved with the clubs activities. It has been great to see so many clubs put on wonderful HockeyFest events, all very different from each other but equally as fun! This is what hockey is all about, having fun with friends through hockey; I wouldn’t be where I am if it wasn’t for club hockey. Thank you to all the clubs and volunteers who hosted us – keep up the amazing work!” said Sam.

Sam started the weekend opening Woking Hockey clubs pitch alongside Notts Sport, the sponsor for HockeyFest and who laid their new pitch. This was the start of his mammoth journey, from their Team Sam made their way up North ready for Sunday’s six events.

Each club had 30 minutes with Sam and it was up to them what they wanted to do! And in true HockeyFest spirit Sam was put through his paces with some great challenges, from the marshmallow game at 9am at Morpeth to a hockey assault course in Sunderland to being dunked into water at the City of York to finishing the day as Super Sam at Crewe.

First was Morpeth Hockey Club in North East, as Team Sam were running five minutes behind schedule already they were greeted by a very keen club coach throwing Sam straight in to the warm up with the 60 juniors in attendance.

Next was Sunderland Broom, they held their event at the local cricket club where they used the green for an array of fun hockey challenges for Sam to take part in. As we approached lunch Norton hockey club put Sam through his paces with the cha cha slide and the hockey cokey and kindly fed Team Sam for the journey to Yorkshire.

City of York welcomed Sam with a drag flick speed test against their very best,

which the European bronze medalist came away the fastest. He then kindly offered to be the target for their dunking challenge, where club members had to flick a ball onto a target with the aim it would hit a trigger dropping Sam into the cold water – must see video below!

Next Sam arrived in a very wet Bolton, where Sam gave his top hockey knowledge to the group. The final stop of the day was Crewe Vagants who had a super hero themed event so naturally they dressed Sam in a superhero outfit! They got him to take part in a hockey assault course and to judge their bake off.

It wasn’t just Sam visiting Hockey Fest events across the country, many other of our International athletes were inspiring hockey clubs which you can see the highlights below.